Itla Children's foundation, Helsinki, Finland.
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
Scand J Public Health. 2022 Dec;50(8):1105-1112. doi: 10.1177/14034948221111263. Epub 2022 Jul 29.
According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children's views should be heard in policymaking. But it remains unclear to what extent children's wellbeing is considered in election promises.
We investigated the extent to which Finnish political candidates consider children and their wellbeing in their election promises. We used YLE, the national broadcaster's voting advice application database, and analysed some 35,000 politicians' election promises made in the 2015 and 2019 parliamentary and the 2017 and 2021 municipal elections. We calculated the proportion of candidates who mentioned children and examined the content of the election promises in which children were mentioned. Logistic regression models were used to examine the role of the background of the characteristics of candidates.
In the 2015 and 2019 elections, some 12% and 19% of candidates, respectively, mentioned children in their election promises. The figures for the 2017 and 2021 municipal elections were higher at 19% and 24%, respectively. In the 2021 election, the candidates considering children in their election promises were younger and had higher education qualifications. Inspection of a random set of 350 promises indicated that common issues mentioned in respect of children were education and hobby activities. Concrete proposals to improve the wellbeing of children were rarely put forward.
Political candidates are increasingly considering children in their election promises but concrete proposals to improve the wellbeing and health of children are rare. Effective policy solutions to improve the health of children should be discussed in election debates.
根据《联合国儿童权利公约》，在制定政策时应听取儿童的意见。但在多大程度上考虑了儿童的福祉以纳入选举承诺仍不清楚。
我们调查了芬兰政治候选人在选举承诺中考虑儿童及其福祉的程度。我们使用了国家广播公司 YLE 的投票建议应用程序数据库，并分析了大约 35000 名政客在 2015 年和 2019 年议会选举以及 2017 年和 2021 年市政选举中的选举承诺。我们计算了提到儿童的候选人的比例，并检查了提到儿童的选举承诺的内容。逻辑回归模型用于检查候选人背景特征的作用。
在 2015 年和 2019 年的选举中，分别有 12%和 19%的候选人在选举承诺中提到了儿童。2017 年和 2021 年的市政选举中，这一比例分别上升至 19%和 24%。在 2021 年的选举中，考虑在选举承诺中纳入儿童的候选人更年轻，且受教育程度更高。对 350 个随机承诺的检查表明，与儿童相关的常见问题是教育和业余活动。很少提出改善儿童福祉的具体建议。
政治候选人越来越多地在选举承诺中考虑儿童，但很少提出具体建议来改善儿童的福祉和健康。应在选举辩论中讨论有效的政策解决方案，以改善儿童的健康。
